runners help me plaese have my first half on sun and havnt run for 10 days

[mothersmilk]

due to household commitments and the school holidays i just havnt benn able to or mitivated enough to det out and run for about two weeks i know have a half marathon on sunday im going out tonight for my usual 6.5 miles but really would i be mad to go on sunday? my fitness levels were really good befor my little slip up i was doing 6.5 miles 5 days a week with a long run fitted somewhere in. i did 12 miles in under 2 hours. But now im so worried about this race. I know i should have probably tried to get out for a run at least once or twice but with the kids off its got to 7 and iv just wanted to flake or had to do decorating(demoloshing) anyway any tips for how to train this week, very shoprt notice i know but any help would be really really appriciated

I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will come along soon but I think you will be fine. You might not get as fast as a time as you had originally hoped but all your training and fitness levels will not have totally disappeared that quickly. I believe you are meant to taper a couple of weeks before a half anyway to give your body a chance to recover from the training and be fresh for the race. Best of luck, hope you enjoy it.

bump anyone?

You can do it- will be hard though. Do the 6.5 tonight and an 'easy' 3-4m jog on friday, then rest until sunday.

i don't run right now as i'm PG and fat! (and not fit enough to keep running throughout pregnancy) (mainly cos i've been PG and fat for about 3 years on and off now!!)

but I used to do quite a lot of half Ms.

I'd say that, if you were doing 6 miles 5 times a week for quite a while, you've got a good fitness base there.

And this week, keep your legs going, but don't actually 'train'.

So do run if you can, but at an easy pace, and not too far. So if you usually run 6 miles, do a bit less than that, and at an easy pace?

What you need to balance is the benefits of keeping legs 'ticking over', and over-doing it. I'd say probably don't run after thursday if the half M is on Sunday?

only my opinion, and am sure there are others that know more than me....

I did the Burnham Beeches half on Sunday after a week without any exercise because I'd had a cold. I have a pretty good training base but had only entered a few weeks before so I hadn't done much building up.

My approach was to treat it as a training run which just happened to be a half - nice and easy, no hopes of a PB or smashing that elusive 2 hour time.... It was fine, hard but good, beautiful route. I was about a minute a mile slower than the half I did last year which I was actually ready for. Do the run, but as others have said, nice and easy rather than going for it.

Your miles are in the bank, so your little break shouldn't affect you too much. You do need to get your legs ticking over again though before Sunday. If you can run 12 miles in under 2 hours you will be fine. You will surprise yourself how the atmosphere and adrenalin on the day will help.

I would do an easy 5 miles tonight, 2 to 3 miles slow on Friday and some stride outs on Saturday. By that I mean stretch your legs out by running long strides for about 20 secs then jog and repeat 3 or 4 times. Eat a big plate of pasta and you will be fine - good luck . And remember to enjoy yourself .

You will be absolutely fine, the rest may even help, all coaches would recommend a taper in the last couple of weeks, so you should have been doing less mileage anyway.

Do your 6.5 tonight and a very short one (less than 30 min) on Fri then no more.

After the race make sure you get warm quickly (if I don't I always get a cold/sickness bug) and take at least a week off from running.

Have fun. Is it your first race? If so, be careful what you get talked into afterwards - I will agree to almost any physical challenge in the hour immediately following a good race

How did you get on?